PASSION FOR SKATEBOARDING

It takes a certain kind of individual to develop a passion for skateboarding. The risk of injury from not one fall but from repeated falls is inevitable. Coming from someone who used to skateboard because it was the thing to have at the time, I know first hand that it takes courage and resilience to master this sports of skills and determination—and I have neither!

In conjunction with the celebration of His Majesty the Sultan’s 62nd Birthday, a skateboard competition was held this weekend at the Oil & Gas Discovery Centre (OGDC) in Seria. On the way back from the clinic where my son Jamie had his second neubiliser session of a series of sessions to go (his asthmatic past had caught up with him!), we dropped by The Big Top to check out the skateboarders.

Back when I had my Canon 1D Mark II, I would visit the park in Kuala Belait where many of these skateboarders showcase their skill. Until today, I hadn’t found a reason to post the pictures from my previous stash so here I post just a couple from this morning. I understand from one of the organisers this morning that the first Brunei Xtreme Skateboarding Competition was held there before opting for The Big Top venue. More information at IskandarWorld!

© Jan Shim Photography

© Jan Shim Photography

In the picture below, instead of freezing the skateboarder, I decided lower the shutter speed to 1/80th of a second so the background blur you see is as-captured and not Photoshopped as you may have suspected. At such shutter speeds, there’s a high chance of unusable pictures and only a small handful are actually keepers—a price to pay for creative photography.

© Jan Shim Photography

Fast action sports photography is the domain of cameras with super fast AF such as the 1D MkII’s 8.5fps burst speeds come in handy for freezing moments like these. I have thought about the current generation 1D MkIII possibly a reality for my newly acquired taste for birds-in-flight shots and sports photography. But I’ve decided to hold on to the thought for as long as I can and for good reasons too—there’s no demand for sports pictures here and the same can be said for nature or bird pictures in any local publication to justify the investment.

© Jan Shim Photography

© Jan Shim Photography

About Jan Shim
Professional Photographer in Brunei Darussalam with diverse portfolio in commercial food, corporate, tourism and travel photography. Follow me on Facebook | Twitter.

8 Responses to PASSION FOR SKATEBOARDING

  1. CL says:

    That is SO cool…… I love the pics.. It must be so hard to get it that sharp with all the movement!

  2. David says:

    What amazing photos! Keep up the marvelous work. :)

  3. Pingback: Global Voices Online » Brunei: Extreme skateboard competition

  4. Jeff says:

    This guys rocks! And the pics too! Thks.

  5. anonyjw says:

    Really great shots… I’m really impressed!

    You must’ve taken 1000 shots just to get 100 good ones. That’s a lot of skill and dedication right there.

    Thanks for posting!
    anonyjw
    http://boboleechronicles.wordpress.com

  6. Cassandre says:

    Hey! This is a really good job you did with those skateboarders!. Actualy, where was it?! And do you know who’s in you pics?!

  7. Jan Shim says:

    Thanks. No, I don’t personally know any of the skateboarders! Details of the event where these were photographed are in the text above.

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